Deshaun Watson waiting for it to click to former version of himself
BEREA − There was a lot of things Deshaun Watson could prepare for in his first regular-season start last Sunday.
What Watson couldn’t prepare for, though, was the emotions. The emotions, as much as the rust, were something the Browns quarterback just had to deal with as he faced the Houston Texans.
In some ways even, the emotions were a bigger opponent to him than Texans’ defense.
“I think last week, it was a lot,” Watson said Thursday. “The anticipation to just be back on the field, the anticipation of going back to my former team, the anticipation of playing against former teammates and being in front of a crowd that used to cheer for me at the time. So all that stuff was definitely, it was a lot. I’m human so I definitely have things running through my mind and through my just soul in general. But I’m glad that’s out the way and I’m glad we got to win and I’m just trying to look forward to this week.”
The win last Sunday marked the first time Watson − who missed the first 11 games this season because of an NFL suspension due to more than two-dozen allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct during massage appointments − had played in a regular-season game in 700 days. It’ll be just seven days between that start and his next one, this Sunday in Cincinnati.
For Watson, that’s a quick turnaround from what was arguably his worst performance of his career statistically. He completed just 12-of-22 passes for 131 yards with an interception, for a career-low 53.4 passer rating in the 27-14 win over Houston.
There’s a lot of advantages to that turnaround, giving Watson a chance to put that game behind him. However, there’s no guarantee that one game is all it’ll take for the former Pro Bowler to return to his former on-field self.
Watson is the first to acknowledge the looming questions about the timeline for him to get back to that point. He knows the only way to get back there is to do what he did last Sunday and will do again this week.
“Overall just playing football, just being out there, just playing football, doing what I’m doing, just finding myself,” Watson said. “All of that stuff’s gotta come back and, like I said last week, I don’t know when it’s gonna come back. I don’t know if it was gonna be last week, this week. My job is to just keep getting better and when it clicks it, it clicks and everyone will feel that. So like I said, just keep improving, keep trying to do my best to make sure that the team is up and up to the challenge and trying to score points and win games.”
Watson had been on the practice field for two weeks prior to being reinstated by the NFL on Nov. 28. Much of that time was spent running the scout-team offense, but it was still a chance to do something on the field with the Browns for the first time since late August.
There was also the one week of actual work Watson had with the first-team offense leading into the game against Houston. All of that work, though, wasn’t quite the same as what it was like once he got back on the field against another opponent.